Symptoms associated with premenstrual syndrome, menstruation, and menopause often occur in women. These symptoms may include dysmenorrheal (menstrual cramping), irritability, water retention, moodiness, depression, anxiety, skin changes, headaches, breast tenderness, tension, weight gain, cravings, fatigue, hot flashes, itching and other associated sensory maladies. Attempts have been made to deliver analgesics in the vicinity of the cervix and the vaginal mucosa using various vaginally-inserted devices and methods to treat or alleviate these symptoms. However, these attempts have drawbacks which make the attempts undesirable for one or more reasons.
One of these attempts has been the use of medicated tampons. Tampons should not be used by women outside of their menstrual period. This severely limits the usefulness of medical products that use a tampon for vaginal delivery of a medication. Even for use in relieving menstrual pain, a tampon delivered medication is only semi-effective since a significant portion of women who suffer with menstrual pain begin experiencing pain prior to menstruation. In addition, a tampon delivered medication could not be used to effectively treat vaginal ailments such as sexually transmitted diseases (STD's) or yeast infections, since medicated tampons should not be used between menstrual periods.
Other methods of applying medication to the vaginal cavity include syringe-like devices. However, past syringes for vaginal delivery of liquid or creme medications have looked like ordinary hypodermic syringes or have looked like aspirator bulbs on the end of tubes and hoses. The devices look intimidating, confusing to use, and appear to be intended for use by a point of care physician or nurse, and not by the person in need of treatment with the therapeutic agent. There is a need in the art for a delivery device to deliver a therapeutic substance to a body cavity, such as the vaginal canal, which is easy to use and is not intimidating to a user.